The small volume, embossed with a silver scorpion crest, lay open on the sand. Its yellowed vellum bore neat rows of names, dates, and coin values listing her own bounty. Faris snapped his gaze to the text, his mouth drawing thin before he scanned the distant ridge. He scooped the booklet up, jammed it into his tunic's inner lining, and turned back to her with a rigid stare. “The Ghoul is dead!” one of the trainees bellowed, hoarse above the wind. “You split the brute!” Cheers erupted, echoing across the sun-scorched expanse. The line soldiers crowded around, hauling Shirin to her feet and pounding her armored back with heavy fists. Faris lingered two paces back, his fingers twitching toward her shoulder before he caught himself and stiffened. Their triumph was short-lived. A distant rumble began, not of collapsing dunes, but of iron wheels on packed earth. A cloud of dust billowed on the horizon, rapidly approaching the stone fortress. Within moments, the ornate palanquin of the Grand Wazir, gleaming with polished obsidian and gold, was visible, flanked by a phalanx of his crimson-robed retainers. Their banners, depicting a coiled serpent striking from a pearl, unfurled with an ominous snap in the arid wind. Murmurs spread among the trainees. The minister himself in the outer dunes signaled an execution or a seizure. Faris barked his order through the settling grit: “Fall back to the gates! Defensive wedge! Boy, on my heels!” They sprinted over the chalk flats toward the iron-sheeted postern. The Wazir’s procession arrived simultaneously, halting just beyond the fortified entrance. The palanquin’s silken curtains parted, revealing the corpulent minister, Yildriz, whose narrow stare pinned Shirin against the iron door. He raised a bejeweled hand. “Commander Faris,” the minister rasped, the syllables carrying flat over the limestone yard. “A pleasant surprise, finding you here. I believe you possess an item, and a person, that are rightfully mine.” Faris shifted his footing, blocking Shirin behind his broad shoulder plates. “My Lord Wazir. The bastion answers only to the Shah’s appointed Qalat. Your presence without sealed notice breaches border protocol.” The minister showed yellow teeth. “A matter of royal prerogative. A thief runs among your conscripts—a guttersnipe who carried off an account book of state matters. Worse, one who handled property barred to commoners.” Before the commander could answer, a sentry in lacquered plate unfurled a square of calfskin. “By the decree of the Shahanate,” he intoned, his voice booming across the courtyard, “and witnessed by the Viziers of the Jade Court, the individual known as Shirzad stands accused of larceny against the Grand Wazir Yildriz. We are hereby authorized to seize the stolen property and arrest the accused for immediate transportation to the Wazir’s private dungeons for interrogation and sentencing.” Shirin shrank back against the masonry, the brass badge heavy in her pocket. Faris reached over his shoulder, fingers clamping around the shagreen wrap of his poleaxe. The pale slate of his pupils fixed directly on the herald. “You will not touch him,” Faris said, his voice low, a dangerous rumble that silenced even the wind. The herald snorted. “You challenge a royal writ over an unwashed novice?” Faris ripped Sky-Splitter from his back with a clang, the polished steel glinting menacingly. The immense blade, longer than Shirin was tall, thrummed with a barely contained fury as he brought it to rest, point down, before him. It was a gesture of defiance, an unmistakable challenge. The crimson retinue pulled their curved sabers clear of brass scabbards. “Treason?” Faris dragged the spade-blade sideways through the gravel. “The conscript wears the garrison sash. He answers to the yard court, not your palanquin.” Iron clinked against armor as the conscripts shifted back. Brandishing weapons against an imperial seal risked the gibbet for the entire company. Roshan stepped past the defensive line, raising empty hands level with his ears. “Wait,” Roshan’s voice was surprisingly steady. “The ledger. It is mine.” Faris twisted toward him with bared teeth. The minister blinked, chin lifting. Roshan kept his chin high, his stance braced against the stone curb. “I hold a contract with the concubine broker,” Roshan stated, his voice flat and deliberate. “The catalog of names is mine. The novice only pulled it from my bedroll during kit inspection. I took it from your bailiff's tent.” The yard fell entirely silent. Faris’s grip on the poleaxe slackened by an inch as he stared down the youth who had shared his camp bread. “A broker's hound?” The minister waved two fingers toward the open sand. “Chain him. Bring him to the carriage rear.” Two armored footmen caught Roshan by the elbows, forcing his wrists into iron cuffs. They dragged him toward the vehicle, his boots carving twin grooves through the dirt. The minister watched the boy stumble into the dust, then tossed a wax-stamped scroll onto the stones before Faris's steel-toed boots. “Commander,” the fat man said through the curtain slit. “Your defense of the runaway is entered in the record. The warrant stands. Surrender the boy by midnight, or my tamed dune-stalkers will pull down these gates and feed on the company.”

The Interrogation